Daddy lived and died carnival

“He lived and died Carnival,” was how Crystal Aming-Marcus described her grandfather, the late Neville Aming, whom she also referred to as her father.

The veteran mas leader, who won the medium band of the year title four times, passed on Friday at 9.20 pm at a private nursing home.

Aming’s funeral will be held on Monday at the Assumption Church, Long Circular Road, Maraval. “He passed peacefully. The nuns and his daughters were all with him and they sang him into heaven,” Aming-Marcus told Newsday.

His son, Bobby Aming, who spoke with Newsday via phone, said his 94-year-old father was not ill but rather grieved to death for Carnival and his children.

Bobby said, “He lived and died mas. He retired from Carnival in Trinidad in the mid-90s and then he moved on.

He was always into Bermuda and Washington DC, which is where I lived. He would always come after Bermuda and join us and bring carnival. He helped develop carnival in Washington DC.” One of Aming’s daughters, Lisa Aming-Castor also had a band in Washington DC’s carnival.

Aming assisted in developing regional, as well as international, carnivals and was one of the founding members of the Carnival Band Leader’s Association.

The band leader was also most known for costumes which referenced Trinidad and Tobago’s history and did not like “bikini and beads mas.” He was awarded the Humming Bird Silver for his contributions to the mas in 1996, the same year Peter Minshall was awarded the Trinity Cross.

Wrenwrick Brown, secretary of The National Carnival Bands Association, extended condolences to the Aming family saying, the entire carnival fraternity mourns whenever one of its icons passes.

Aming, he recalled, served on the executive of the then carnival body and was its treasurer at one point.

Brown said he was proud to represent TT at the Pan Am games in the US along with Aming.